Call Me Joe

by Steven J Patrick

  “We’re investigating some voting problems with the Colville Reservation,” I said quietly, “and why the lid is so tight on Jack’s development.”

  “You mean that memo?” Weber asked, pulling on his coat.

  I froze and glanced at Jack.

  “What memo?” Jack asked.

  “That thing from London,” Weber said, gathering up his keys. “The one about…uh…maybe I ought not talk about this.”

  “Son,” Jack said with an edge in his voice, “you worked for me when you were there and you work for me, now. This is where you start using your head. Now, what memo?”

  “There was a memo from P.P.V., addressed to Mr. Steptoe. It said that all pre-marketing campaigns were suspended, no one talks to anybody about the place, and any visitors are to be prohibited from the site. It mentioned you by name.”

  Jack went red around the ears and whipped out his cell. I reached over and took it out of his hand.

  “Tru,” Jack said heatedly.

  “Sorry,” I smiled. “You get into illegal shenanigans, that’s my turf. You fight sneaky with sneakier. Let’s travel.”

  I closed the phone’s cover and tossed it back to him. Jack looked at me for a long moment, sighed once, and shoved the cell angrily into his coat pocket.

  We left the trailer, Aaron pausing to lock up, feed the dogs, and give each of them a quick scratch behind the ears.

  I have fairly irrational criteria for evaluating people, I admit. But one of the most dependable says that anyone who is cruel or indifferent to animals will be someone I don’t like. On the flip side, people who are kind to animals and whose animals love them will have redeeming qualities, no matter how hard it may be to find them.

  Weber’s dog clearly adored him, jumping to reach his outstretched hand, jockeying for position, and hoping frantically to go with him as he walked away.

  “We takin’ separate cars? he asked.

  “People around here will know your truck,” I replied. “We need to be able to sneak up on folks. Besides, you don’t need to be drivin’ around with that pillow on your face.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “probably right. I just took a pain-killer, too. One thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They know your car, too,” he said, managing a small smile. “Anybody who doesn’t has been out of town.”

  Jack dropped back next to me and leaned in close.

  “He is going to earn what he makes, right?” he murmured. “You got a plan, I assume.”

  “Well, yes and no, in that order,” I smiled.

  “Can’t imagine why that doesn’t surprise me,” he sighed.

  Twenty-Three

  “Art D’Onofrio.”

  “Art, this is Rod Hooks, of Pembroke Property Ventures, calling from London. Have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “No. Not actually a bad time Mr. Hooks, but I’m a little confused. Shouldn’t this call be coming through Bailey Kanter Krauss in New York?”

  “Well, Art, it actually doesn’t concern the Colville project…Let me put this another way. It doesn’t concern any of the business or contractual particulars of it. In fact, most of the reason for this call is to determine if it had anything to do with Colville at all.”

  “Mr. Hooks …”

  “Rod, please.”

  “Rod, you lost me.”

  “Okay… I find myself in the awkward position of having to rely on your complete discretion in hearing what I’m about to say.”

  “Rod, I only promise total discretion to clients. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Would your firm be willing to take my father’s Will through probate? I’m the executor.”

  “Well, sure, I guess. When did he die?”

  “With any luck, not for another 10-20 years.”

  “Oh, I get it. Sure, can you send me a dollar?”

  “Of course. Hold on. Mary, please wire a cash transfer to the address phone of Arthur D’Onofrio, Spokane, Washington, USA, immediately. Got that? Amount, one dollar… Yes, Mary, one dollar. Thanks… Okay. It’s coming. Extend me credit until it arrives?”

  “Certainly.”

  “So you now represent me?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Good, One of our senior board members was shot and killed today. Just before we found out, parties unknown sent us an e-mail which said that he was killed to stop the Colville project. Obviously we need to know if this is true.”

  “My God, of course! But…the man was… He was here?”

  “No, it happened in a London suburb.”

  “And the e-mail mentioned Colville?”

  “Exactly. Well…not Colville, specifically, but Washington.”

  “So…What do you need from me, seeing that your father’s will is on the back burner?”

  “Anthony Pembroke, our president, tells me that you employ a Seattle investigator you think pretty highly of. We’d like to retain him to look into any possible connections there. Your next question, of course, is why we don’t simply turn this over to the police or the F.B.I. Answer is, Scotland Yard undoubtedly will use local police there and the F.B.I. will probably get involved. They’ll just be looking for person or persons, though. We need to know if this was the act of an organized group and, mostly, if we can expect anything similar, down the road.”

  “Rod, you’re aware that I represent Jack Bartinelli, so I think I can safely say, on his behalf, that he would also like to insure that nothing like this happens again. But…you don’t seem convinced that the e-mail was genuine.”

  “I’m not. Neither is Anthony. There’s one very basic fact that argues against it. This happened in London, so far as anyone has been able to determine. There is no record of any sort of American eco-terrorism being exported anywhere other than Canada. As close to the vest as Scotland Yard keeps things, even they’ve admitted that they don’t see this as coming from the U.S. Their working theory is European group or groups using the Colville project to mask some other agenda. The one thing we’re all sure of is that the project has been so under-promoted that none of the groups who usually go ballistic really seems to know anything about it. So, the Sierra Club has an alibi. Who did it?”

  “Well, one obvious answer is that it’s not a group…Rod. I don’t know a great deal about terrorism of any kind. Here around Spokane, we get the survivalists and militia groups and, for the most part, they might rob a bank now and then but shootings and bombings? Can’t think of any, offhand, that smelled like something political. Truman North is the name of the investigator and he will know about terrorism, since that’s what his military service was mainly concerned with. He happens to be up this way, on another job, so…”

  “We’ve heard. Our site manager seems to have peed down both legs during that little courtesy call paid him by Mr. North and Jack Bartinelli. I’m just going to assume their visit has to do with the tribal voting snafu but I know you can’t comment on that, so…”

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to tell you, though, they’ve thrown us into a ticklish situation.”

  “Rod, how? What is the big freakin’ deal? Why hook up with a big-gun developer like Jack Bartinelli and then keep him from doing what he does best? I mean, let’s take off the lawyer and client hats for a second. One businessman to another. What’s the flippin’ point?”

  “Honestly?”

  “No, Rod, lie to me.”

  “The truth is, I don’t know. The decision comes from somewhere above me and no one’s talking. It’s driving me batshit, frankly. I left a pretty good gig in Seattle for this and I sit here watching our main chance slip away, for no good reason I can imagine. Honestly, all hats off—if I knew, I’d tell you.”

  “I’ll get Tru to call you.”

  “Much obliged.”

  

  Calvert flipped off the desk lamp and plunged them both into darkness. Immediately, the pall of fatigue transmuted to a pleasant lassitude. The
evening lights across the cityscape, outside his window, called out to him in that soft, insistent way that he knew was mostly illusion.

  “Sir?” Jennings asked, “will that be all?”

  “You ever wonder why we do this, Jennings?” Calvert asked idly, as though inquiring after the weather or someone’s house pets.

  “Daily,” Jennings chuckled dryly. “Sometimes hourly.”

  “We clasp to our bosom a fervent common illusion,” Calvert continued. “The illusion that what we do is important; that society would simply collapse without our fine hand on the tiller. The plain truth is, there are six million people in and around London and a bit more than 2,000 of ‘us,’ as we say, most of whom are typists, clerks, supply officers, purchasing agents, liaison staff, public relations and the like. That leaves about 800 people who actually venture forth to directly deal with crime. In fact, a reasonably careful sort can, and usually does, get away with almost any crime as long as he keeps it simple, acts quickly, and remains silent. The only people we ever bring to ground are those who are stupid or boastful or sold out by their friends.”

  “A bleak outlook, inspector,” Jennings replied.

  “The truth,” Calvert noted. “This lad is not stupid, I fear. Picked up his brass, so to speak, in and out quickly, a nearly bloodless shot square to the neck. And no one saw or heard anything. The more I think on it, the more I think the e-mail was a red herring. I suspect something personal or business-related, and I suspect our boy-o is a professional.”

  He turned to face Jennings in the room. Jennings was seized with the momentary illusion that Calvert’s eyes glowed redly in the scant illumination.

  “Go through Interpool and the F.B.I. The Israelis, too, for good measure. Do it quietly. Our esteemed spokesperson has been dutifully mouthing the director’s imbecilic conclusions, all morning. That this is not imported American terrorism. The Bush people, to no one’s surprise, have climbed on board, to a man. It’s quite preferable to calling an American a terrorist, isn’t it? Problem is, there’s precedent. Tim McVeigh and John Walker Lindh, to name only a couple. Sometimes, as Freud said, ‘A cigar is just a cigar.’ Let’s take our boy-o at his word and find out about the Washington connection. Need-to-know only, clear?”

  “Quite,” Jennings yawned. “I’ll send out some coded cables before I leave.”

  “Good man,” Calvert smiled. “I want this scoundrel, Jamie. This feels rather personal to me.”

  Jennings stood and retrieved the stack of files Calvert had been perusing. He left quietly, easing the door shut behind him with only the barest, muffled ‘snick’ of the latch. His last glimpse of Calvert was a shadowy profile, hands clasped across his stomach, feet propped up in the windowsill. There was every possibility, Jennings knew, that he’d return at seven the next morning to find Calvert in exactly the same position, lost in his thoughts and oblivious to the passage of time.

  The two had worked together for 21 years and now communicated as much in unspoken signals, body language, and habit as verbally. If asked, either would say that the person who knew him best was the other.

  And yet, Jennings realized for the thousandth time, the real John Calvert, whatever was at the core, behind the efficient yet affable façade, was even more a mystery than it was the day they first met.

  All Jennings knew for sure was that that core’s demand for justice—even, occasionally, retribution—was as cold, monolithic, implacable, and patient as a glacier.

  

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “I’m still looking but … no.”

  Joe’s idyll in Soho was rapidly headed south. As Katja mined the Internet from various places around Europe, Joe bought computer time at a local copy shop and scanned the newspapers in Spokane, Boise, Portland, and Seattle.

  The Seattle P-I had a one-paragraph blurb in their world news box. In the other three, nothing. There was plenty in the U.K. Press, of course, but none mentioned the e-mail.

  Joe began to hear a faint rasping sound, from time to time, which he finally realized was his own teeth grinding.

  “We didn’t think this through,” he muttered darkly. “Why would a paper in Washington or Oregon run the story? Nobody knew the guy there. The e-mail was the connection and Scotland Yard is holding that back.”

  “Why would they do that?” Katja asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Police do that in every homicide investigation,” Joe sighed. “Some detail like that. Helps them sort out actual tips from the chronic confessors and prank calls. Shit, I’m so freakin’ habitually careful, I never thought to leave them something else juicier to hold back.”

  “What do you want to do? Katja asked. “How about an e-mail straight to the papers?”

  “It would be stale, now,” Joe mused. “Besides, Scotland Yard is saying it’s European radicals. An e-mail would look like one of those nut bags trying to steal the credit.”

  “Isn’t that better?” Katja suggested. “If they think it’s those green party freaks, it’s cover for you.”

  “If they think it’s Europeans,” Joe explained, “they’ll think the warning about Washington is a feint. Maybe we weren’t specific. Maybe they have other projects in Washington.”

  “If they do, I haven’t found it on the ‘net,’” Katja replied.

  “They may just not be publicized,” Joe insisted, “or still in the planning stages.”

  “Well, you’ll never know that,” she sighed.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to be a little more blunt, huh?” Joe mused.

  “More blunt?” Katja chuckled. “What would that be, flat-nosed bullets?”

  “Something like that,” Joe replied.

  

  “Look,” Jack sputtered, “I own the place! Why not just walk in and demand to see the memo?”

  “You own the site, maybe,” I replied, “although that’s really just leases, but you don’t own P.P.V.‘s interoffice communications.”

  “But … this is so cloak and dagger,” Jack sighed. “It’s silly … not to mention dangerous.”

  “Jack,” I smiled. “There’s danger and there’s danger. What’s the danger in my going through a window?”

  “That you’ll get caught!” Jack blurted. “What happens if Steptoe comes back?”

  “That’s the point at which you get haughty and imperious,” I laughed. “What’s the downside? He threatens to have me arrested, I’ll refuse.”

  “Refuse?” Jack exclaimed.

  “I refuse pretty good,” I nodded. “It’s one of my best things.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron sighed, leaning against the back door. “I can vouch for that one.”

  We pulled up in front of the expansive lodge built to house Mountain Empire’s offices. It towered three stories above the grassy floor of the valley and featured one huge wall made entirely of glass. It was as far removed from the cluttered trailer where we had first encountered Steptoe as the Ritz is from a phone booth.

  Jack barely glanced at it as we climbed out of the car. Aaron stretch painfully and stared off down the valley.

  “The office is in the back left corner?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” Aaron yawned.” Sorry, this medication makes me sleepy.”

  “I know,” I nodded. “You know where that file is kept?”

  “Cabinet in the corner, top drawer,” he murmured. “It has a lock on it but Mr. Steptoe never uses it.”

  “You ready for this?” I asked. “Gonna be a lot of talk after you’re seen with us.”

  “My mama’s daddy—the granddad I actually liked—used to say that shuttin’ up was never a real bad idea,” Aaron said quietly, avoiding my eyes. “I thought I might try that, for once.”

  I slapped him on the back and smiled at him. It bothered me that my well-advertised perception had failed to show me the intensely vulnerable kid crouching behind the rural bad-ass façade. I realized that my mania for fixing things w
as about to tug me into an attempt at serious over-compensation.

  Aaron looked at me curiously as I removed my hand and glanced at Jack, who was fidgeting with the desire to stomp into the lodge and raise hell with somebody, anybody.

  “You got Jack’s back,” I told Aaron. “I’ll be back here pretty fast.”

  I yawned and stretched and made a major show of moseying off in the opposite direction of the office.

  As soon as I got past the stand of trees at the last bend of the driveway, I ducked into the woods and negotiated a wide arc behind the lodge. The back of the building had one set of patio doors, one tightly-covered larger window at ground level, and two tiny windows on each of the other two floors. Unless Aaron was mistaken, Steptoe’s office was behind the patio doors.

  I edged down the side of the building and peered quickly through the patio slider. The office was empty, its door to the foyer slightly ajar. I could hear Jack administering an epic tongue-lashing and Steptoe’s intermittent bleats of protest.

  I was fishing a metal shim out of my pants pocket when I noticed that the far side of the glass slider and the screen were both open an inch or so.

  Sometimes, being lucky is better than being sneaky.

  I slipped the doors back, crept over to the file cabinet and was reading the file in less than 15 seconds. As I crossed back to the door, on impulse, I glanced down at the paperwork Steptoe had left on his desk.

  It was faxes of a Scotland Yard report on the shooting of Percy Kensington. There were three sets of copies, so I pocketed the bottom set, slipped out the back, and retraced my steps to the parking lot. I locked the file and faxes in the Cherokee’s glove box and then went into the lodge’s foyer, where Jack was still in full Black Bart mode.

  “Tell me something, Alan,” Jack snapped. “If I just decide to dump your ass out in the street right this minute, who do you think is authorized to stop me?”

  “Well, I would hope that cooler heads will prevail,” Steptoe stammered. “For the moment, the site is under control of Pembroke Property Ventures, so I would need to place a phone call to Anthony Pembroke before leaving my post.”